


Misinterpretation

by squire



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Beware the Unreliable Narrator, Enemies to Lovers, Force Visions, M/M, Pre-TFA, Sexual Content, Suppose to Friends as well, TFA-compliant, meanwhile Hux plays a long game, oblivious kylo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-18 04:48:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9368663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squire/pseuds/squire
Summary: The will of the Force is never easy to guess.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [llamatuesday](http://llamatuesday.tumblr.com/) over on Tumblr who won a fic my little give-away :) Thank you darling for this wonderful prompt, and I hope you'll like the twist I added to it!

Kylo's been having visions as far as he can remember. They reach farther than his first conscious memory and are just as nebulous: unclear, multivocal and elusive as the Force that sends them. 

Sometimes it's just an echo of a voice, a smell, a gleam of light on a window frame. Sometimes it's a face he's never seen before, sometimes a smile of someone whom he'll never meet again. Sometimes there are only feelings: warm, safe, or hurting, empty. Sometimes all he picks up are emotions: he can't tell what he's seeing, only that it makes his lungs seize and his breath choke on fear. Sometimes, he's almost sure that the feelings brought by the vision aren't even his own. 

He can never tell when but they always come to pass. Even though sometimes he only notices that looking backwards, when the dust settles around the moments he'd rushed through, unheeding and unthinking, and a little distance in time lends him some perspective. But they always, always come to pass. So he learns to take advantage of those he can understand in time, and tries to draw wisdom from those he could not. 

"I've decided to strengthen your resources in your search for the last Jedi," his Master announces, benevolent, and Kylo's chest swells with pride at this show of support. Next to the warm spark fluttering inside him at his Master's approval, a second tiny flame bursts to life - a tremor of the Force, sending its tendrils from the future to tingle at Kylo's consciousness. In his eagerness to please his Master, Kylo almost doesn't notice it at first. 

"I am giving you a Resurgent-class Star Destroyer to aid you in your mission." 

Pride, gratitude, satisfaction so blinding Kylo is almost staggered by it. A ship of this size - the power of it - at his disposal... it almost doesn't make sense how much it pleases him. 

It doesn't make sense. His powers are not only fear and terror but also quickness and stealth. His small ship and the company of his Knights have been enough to serve him in the past. Moreover, he has no wish to deal with the tedium of running a starship this big, to conform to a schedule, to have to consult his plans with some stuffy old Fleet Admiral.

"Your will is my command," Kylo answers, bowing his head, the formal words appearing on his tongue unbidden and with unfamiliar taste to them. "With respect, Master - my training wasn't focused on commanding troops, and my mission gives me little time to fit into the fleet strategies..."

"It's all right, my apprentice," Snoke soothes him. "You shall not have the sole command. You will share the responsibility. I will assign a young General to the same ship. A bright, loyal, most ambitious man. You will do well learning from him."

_ You will do well watching him in case his ambitions outgrow his loyalties _ , Snoke does not say and doesn't need to. The second seed of emotion in Kylo's chest is now trembling with outrage, resentment, and suppressed anger. He tastes the heady Dark in it and then, satisfied, he banishes the vision. 

Whoever that young General is, he's not going to be pleased at the prospect of having to share his power.

 

*

 

There's a suite of officers and due number of Stormtroopers to honour the moment Kylo lands his shuttle in the  _ Finalizer's _ hangar and walks out to meet his co-commander. He's grateful for his mask - without having to focus how to hide his curiosity he can focus better at picking up the stirrings in the Force left by this man. 

Resentment is still coming off of the General in waves, though outwardly he's nothing else than professional. There's a dash of optimistic cordiality to his manners that would've fooled Kylo - if he didn't have a vision to warn him beforehand. This opportunistic man is truly anxious to start their working relationship on good terms - for what reason and to what end, Kylo does not know yet. So he nods, walks along, offers words of gratitude, and keeps his true voice behind the mask. 

The Force behaves odd around Hux. Kylo can't feel the familiar pull of a strong Force presence - this military man certainly hasn't any abilities - and yet his future path his uncertain. His past is written all over him, Kylo doesn't even need to look closely to get a glimpse: a man who'd clawed his way up with tooth and nail, who'd earned every single one of his promotions - some by hard work, some by a quick slice of a blade, some by an elaborate scheme. A man with no back up, no alternative, hanging onto his position in the power ladder with everything he's got. Always looking up, knowing that there is no cushion waiting to soften his fall, and so falling is not an option. 

Kylo can feel those pale eyes on himself as they walk side by side to the bridge. He's being measured, evaluated - whether or not he's solid enough,  _ stupid _ enough for this General to sink his little claws into Kylo and use his back to climb higher. He smiles into his helmet. Let Hux try.

Their relationship doesn't exactly progress over the course of the next months. Hux is immersed in a weapon construction project that often takes him planet-side - onto a barren, cold ball of rock that had once been valuable due to its kyber crystals deposits but had been since mined dry. Kylo studied the schematics for a bit - he was never keen on the idea of an ultimate weapon, both Death Stars went down in history as a proof that technological terrors can be no match to the Force. Hux, in turn, has little respect for something he only knows from childhood tales. Oh yes, he knows what Kylo can do - he'd been present to several interrogations of Resistance spies, and Kylo knows Hux had requested ship logs and holos from Kylo's mission to study his strategy and fighting ability - but the man refuses to be impressed, and shows only a little respect. 

Kylo doesn't know why Supreme Leader saddled him with Hux of all people. Why the Force deemed it necessary to bring forth a vision of him. Why Kylo himself should be thinking so much about such a - yes, clever, capable and driven - but ultimately a replaceable man. Just another cog in the machine.

He doesn't understand why the visions keep coming.

Kylo walks through the dim corridors of the  _ Finalizer _ and suddenly instead of grey durasteel walls he's surrounded by living trees, shaking in a howling wind and screeching as they're split at the roots by some unknown calamity. Long shadows dance wildly between the trunks, vibrating light pierces through the darkness, and Hux's voice is coming faintly from a distance. 

"Ren? Ren!"

Kylo gasps for breath, the hiss of the vocoder snapping him out of the vision before it could even begin to make sense. 

"My apologies, General. There's been..."

"A disturbance in the Force?"

Were it not for the slightest mocking twitch of that infuriating mouth, Kylo would have believed Hux was finally beginning to understand. He berates himself for his foolishness.

"As you say, General." 

_ As you are. _

 

*

 

Hux goes about propositioning Kylo the same way he goes about everything else: calmly, matter-of-factly, in a self-assured manner of someone who know what they want, what they have to offer, and that they’re not going to make that offer twice. In the cold and efficient light of  _ Finalizer’s _ office Hux’s reasoning makes sense: they’re both of too high station to satisfy their urges amongst the lower ranks without unpleasant repercussions, they each consider the other attractive, and obtaining mutual satisfaction could only benefit their otherwise somehow strained relationship. 

Kylo considers each argument in turn, pausing at Hux’s bold assessment of his own attractiveness in Kylo’s eyes. It’s true – in a way: the General has regular features that are pleasing to look at, he possesses a surprising amount of – usually sparely measured – charm, and his skin looks like it would be smooth to touch. Yes, Kylo does find Hux attractive. But to  _ want _ him - Kylo brushes the gloved pad of his thumb, fascinated, across the sliver of bare skin between glove and uniform sleeve. Then he blinks twice when he realises he’s holding Hux’s hand, a rapid, birdlike pulse fluttering under his fingertips even through the thick leather covering them, and Hux’s other hand is resting on top of their joined ones.

“It’s not so difficult a decision, I hope,” Hux says, eyes dark in the sharp shadow of his brows under the harsh overhead light in the office. His expression is set in shifting shadows under defined cheekbones, in the stern lines framing his lips, in the flawless shape of his jaw - the sum of it entirely unreadable. “Aren’t you a little curious?”

“I am curious,” Kylo admits, glad for his mask. The vocoder has kept his voice even.

“That’s a good start,” Hux remarks, lips twitching up for a second - blink and miss it - and he slips his hand out of Kylo’s grasp, picking up a datapad and opening a new message as he’s sitting down, back to work. Matters dealt with, present company dismissed. Kylo wills his fingers to uncurl and leaves.

 

*

 

They meet in Hux’s quarters after the end of the Alpha shift. There’s a bottle of Correllian whiskey and Hux stands close as he pours a glass to Kylo, close enough to kiss him, slowly and methodically, while the burn of the drink is still travelling down Kylo’s throat. 

Hux’s eyes are dark again when they part and he licks a smear of amber liquid off his upper lip. Kylo finds himself following the movement, leaning down and chasing the taste of smoke, absent sunlight and deceitful sweetness of alcohol on those pink lips, licking them clean and biting them to bring out their own taste, headier than the drink. Already addictive.

“Yes,” Hux breathes into the kiss, and then “fuck,” he groans, “your mouth–”

“Is that a fantasy of yours?” Kylo smirks and oh, it’s worthy the rush of colour up Hux’s cheeks, the first break in his composure.

They help each other get out of their clothes at the same pace set by the initial kiss: unhurriedly but efficiently, more out of courteousness than urgency. Hux makes a quick work of the clasps on the back of Kylo’s belt and in turn, those tight and polished boots are easier to pull off with Kylo’s help. 

Kylo makes himself comfortable on Hux’s bed, propping his shoulders with the pillows and leaning his head against the padded headboard, and pulls Hux’s body atop of his. He decides he likes this, running his hands up lean thighs framing his ribcage, he likes the arch of Hux’s arm braced above him, the way Hux is looking down on him through loose strands of hair falling over his eyes. In control, but barely. He grips Hux’s hips and opens his mouth, tongue flicking out to wet his lips. Hux doesn’t need any more hints and guides the head of his cock inside, just the tip, resting on Kylo’s tongue. Kylo finds he likes the taste, and he likes the cacophony of expressions flickering on Hux’s face as he watches his cock slide deeper into the welcoming heat - something victorious, something vicious, and something almost like awe.

Kylo lets him have the fantasy, lets Hux fuck his face. It’s nothing he can’t take and strangely, he likes it. He likes the solid headboard behind his head keeping him from pulling off the cock stuffed into his mouth, likes Hux’s hand cradling his face in way that perhaps isn't but feels gentle, thumb pushing lightly into his chin to open him wider. He makes it good, pressing his tongue up into the underside of Hux’s cock on every slide in, swallowing when he feels Hux’s cock touch the back of his throat. Hux is going slow, savouring every move, and Kylo slides his hands around him to cup his arse, enjoying the rhythmic shifting and flexing of muscles under his palms, and urges Hux on.

“Easy,” Hux hisses, the word broken half-way into a groan. “Don’t want to–”

“Don’t want to hurt me?” Kylo smirks, letting Hux’s cock fall out of his mouth with a wet slurp. “I’m touched.”

“Brat,” Hux says, sounding amused and breathless at the same time. “Don’t want to finish too quickly. I could fuck you like this for hours,” he drawls, voice quiet, eyes hooded and dreamy, watching Kylo planting little kisses all over his cock, watching his lips glisten with spit and precome. “I want to think about this next time you’re talking back to me.”

Kylo laughs and grabs Hux by the hips, thumbs brushing over sharp hipbones, fingers splayed over the flesh of Hux’s arse. When he curls them just so, he can dip them into the crack, tease against that tiny twitching hole.

“I will be thinking about this next time I see you strutting around in that padded greatcoat of yours. How small you really are.”

The hand resting on the side of Kylo’s face tightens briefly, and he wonders if he’s going to get slapped. If he would mind. But then Hux smiles, and it’s nothing like the precise and fake smiles Kylo’s used to see on Hux’s face. The emotion behind it eludes him. Before he can look closer it’s already gone and Hux’s cock is back in his mouth, hot and heavy and exactly the way Kylo wanted.

Hux licks the come from his lips afterwards, greedy for the taste of himself or maybe he still can’t get enough of Kylo’s mouth, and then slithers down Kylo’s body to return the favour. Kylo lets him have the upper hand here too, lets Hux settle between his spread legs, pin Kylo's hands under his own lower back, lets him set the pace. Hux rewards him for such obedience with admittedly the best blow job Kylo’s ever received and he comes shouting, buried deep in Hux’s throat and with two spit-slicked fingers up his arse.

Kylo half expects to be kicked out after this. Even though he doesn’t want to be, all of a sudden. Somehow it feels wrong, to leave now - even thinking about leaving now makes something inside Kylo’s chest curl uncomfortably. But before Kylo can work himself into a mood, Hux returns from the ‘fresher, nudges Kylo to move to one side of the bed and throws the covers over both of them, rolling over and fitting his narrow bony back along Kylo’s side. 

“The alarm is set an hour before the start of Alpha shift,” Hux informs him, sleep already slurring his words a little. “I trust you to be discreet when leaving in the morning.”

Disgruntled and relieved at once, for reasons he doesn’t want to analyse too closely, Kylo puts his arm around Hux’s shoulders and falls asleep before he knows it.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Two months into their arrangement and Kylo has to admit Hux was right. Their working relationship  _ has _ improved. They’re still practically incompatible as co-commanders, Hux still throws around demeaning comments at every opportunity and Kylo still does as he pleases, costs and resources be damned - but now it feels different. It feels almost as it’s  _ allowed _ , expected even. They’ve come to a strange sort of understanding, a quiet intimacy that extends past the bedroom and has slowly permeated their daily routine. Too different to be able to successfully work together, they’ve learned to work around each other. When they clash, arguing over some matter or another, Hux almost looks as if he’s enjoying it. Kylo certainly is.

Having the option of working out their frustrations in bed is also helping. Hux is just as bossy lover as he’s a commander, accustomed to having his way and enjoying a good fight even when he plans to lose. When they switch, Hux is a demanding bottom, bitching at Kylo even as he’s being pounded within an inch of his life. It’s endlessly frustrating and Kylo wouldn’t want it any other way.

They fight and they get their work done, and then they fuck and fall asleep curled around each other, and they don’t talk about it.

 

*

 

_ Dark, darkness all around, night - no, there should be day but the sun is gone, not eclipsed, but devoured, gone - stars twinkling like laughter in the freezing sky, stars and twirling snow-flakes biting his skin and red glow just out of his line of sight– _

– _ and pain, pain like a beast feeding on his body, lying helpless in the snow, warmth seeping away from him with every drop of blood, and he can’t move his sword arm, he can’t open his mouth to scream, he’s going to die here– _

– _ alone, beaten, betrayed, his body is mangled and his soul is torn apart and there’s rage, rage so burning it melts the snow on his face into tears, and fear, fear so overwhelming the trees are shaking with it, and heartsickness and vengeance and  _ **_hate–_ **

_ – _ Kylo trembles and clings and begs the Force, willing the vision to stay, to explain itself, to let him turn his head in the direction of steps crunching the frozen layer of snow.

_ It's  Hux, eyes like pits of fire in the dying light, teeth bared in the whipping wind, looking down at Kylo, and his shaking fist is closed around Kylo’s own lightsaber. _

Kylo jolts awake, heart beating out of his chest and whimper escaping his dry lips. His throat feels raw as if he’s been screaming. Maybe he has.

Cold fingers brush across his back. The touch feels clammy. He’s naked and dripping with sweat. His legs are trapped in a bunch of sheets - Hux’s sheets. He’s in Hux’s quarters. In his bed. He'd only just dozed off after a good hard fuck. The lamp on the nightstand is still warm. 

“It was just a dream,” Hux murmurs behind him. 

The vision flares behind Kylo’s eyelids and he shudders. The touch returns, featherlight and familiar and soothing, and Kylo squeezes his eyes shut and silently curses himself when his first instinct, the automatic reaction of his traitorous body is to lean into the comfort. 

Into the trap. 

_ Hux will try to kill me. He’ll strike me down and leave me to die on a dying planet. The Force doesn’t lie. Which means that the lie is… everything else. Everything of this.  _

“Didn’t feel like a dream,” he mutters, testing his own voice. Still horribly unsteady.

“Nightmares often feel real,” Hux keeps talking into the semi-darkness, the light of a nearby star reflected on  _ Finalizer’s  _ gleaming hull coming through the viewport and casting the room in a web of orange shadows. 

“You have them quite often, did you know? This usually helps,” and Hux repeats the caress, counting the bumps of Kylo’s spine with slow touches. 

“That’s why you insist I sleep here? So you could ward off my nightmares?” Kylo doesn’t trust himself to turn around and face Hux, see the vainglorious smugness that must be written all over him.

Hux lets out a quiet chuckle. “It’s self-preservation. You’re much more reasonable during the day when you’ve had a good night sleep.” 

How? How can Hux sound so genuine? Kylo finally turns, brushes the wet tangles of hair out of his eyes and lowers himself onto Hux’s body, into the familiar warmth, cages the thin frame of him between his propped elbows and just looks at him, up close. It’s like studying a resting viper, smooth scales looking as if carved from stone but – make a wrong move and you’re dead.

Kylo admires the art and complexity of Hux’s subterfuge almost as much as he hates it. It’s perfect - Hux is not overdoing it, hasn’t suddenly turned into sweet, doting man. The tone of Hux’s voice conveys his usual haughty impatience, twin little lines of exasperation between his eyebrows indicate he would much rather have Ren stop bothering him and sleep. And yet he’s holding Kylo in his arms, gently rocking him to ease away the tension that he must think to be a remnant of the nightmare, and it hurts, hurts almost as much as it hurt to lie in the deadly cradle of snow.

Kylo fiercely regrets that despite the fear-fed rumours of the crew, Force users can’t actually read minds without ripping apart the target’s mind and sanity. He could compel a lesser man into telling him the truth but Hux’s will is too strong for that. Kylo can’t give away that he knows the truth, can he?

And some small part of him regrets that he knows. The vision was still too incomplete to give him proper warning, he doesn’t know when or where Hux will strike, only that he will. But why going through all this - why did Hux have the need to seduce Kylo, why does he pretend to  _ care _ \- simply to keep his friends close, and his enemies closer?

Kylo thinks of wrapping his hands around that slender, ivory neck and just – eliminating that particular future once and for all. It would be so easy. Quick and clean. He  goes as far as cradling the side of Hux’s face in his large palm, thumb brushing just under the chin. How easy it would be to slip his hand lower, to cut off the steady pulse of life– 

Kylo gasps when he realises he couldn’t. Shame burns through him, hot and humiliating, and he’s disgusted with his own weakness, but he can’t. He wants something else, he wants the truth to be untrue - oh, if this is all just a game for Hux, Kylo might just as well play it all the way. He doesn’t have to hold back now. 

He kisses Hux, deep and slow, again and again until everything he knows is the taste of Hux, until Hux’s lips are swollen and his every breath is a moan. He doesn’t hold back his hands that roam over every inch of Hux’s skin, can’t get enough of the feeling, absorbing his warmth, as if he could possess a man through touch. Hux wraps his legs around Kylo’s waist and Kylo can’t stop kissing him, even as he’s sliding inside, into Hux’s body where he’s still slick and loose from earlier. He clings to Hux’s shoulders, and sighs his name, and rocks like a boat on a sea of sensations that are so perfect and hurt so much because they aren’t real.

Hux is so good under him, flushed and soft and beautiful, eyes rolling back in his head with every thrust of Kylo’s cock so perfectly snug inside him and kissing Kylo back as if he meant it - and perhaps he does, Kylo thinks bitterly, perhaps he’s in love with the thought of his plans coming to fruition, with the promise of victory. He buries his face in Hux’s neck when he comes, deep inside Hux and it feels as if it drained him whole, took something from him and left behind a gaping wound.

Hux is biting his lip, looking up at Kylo with something uncontrolled in his eyes, and he grinds against the still mostly hard cock in his arse and throws his arms around Kylo’s neck and whispers–

“Careful, Ren. You look about to fall in love with me.”

“Maybe I already did,” Kylo whispers back, heartsick and broken and Hux swears, arches his back and comes, the most beautiful thing Kylo has ever seen and he hates it, hates it terribly.  

They stay like that afterwards, wrapped up in each other, breathing in sync. The last thing fleeting through Kylo’s mind before he falls asleep listening to the heartbeat of his enemy is that he doesn’t want this to end.

He will wait. Carry on and wait. It will stop hurting after a while. After all, he can learn to take what he wants and convince himself he’s only pretending.  


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the chapter count bumping up, as my regular readers know, this is a thing that happens. I suck at chapter count estimation :(

Kylo wakes up the next morning and goes about getting ready to leave Hux’s quarters more quietly than usual. They never were ones for small talk, Hux usually fully rebooted only after second cup of caf and there was never much of what to talk about. But today Kylo takes care to turn away every time Hux opens his mouth to say something and by the third time Kylo catches Hux giving him an odd look, an uneasy line around his mouth.

_ Does he know that I know? _

There’s a cup of steaming caf waiting on the table next to his mask when he steps out of the ‘fresher. That’s not new - Hux has these ridiculous notions about proper etiquette, insisting on sharing his whiskey in the evening and caf in the morning. Kylo always assumed it was Hux’s way of evening the ground between them after spending all night leeching off Kylo’s body heat. Living quarters on the ship tended to run on the cold side. 

But today the caf isn’t the usual bitter brew designed to maximum caffeine intake in minimum time that Hux prefers. It’s a sweet, creamy, spice-flavoured thing - exactly the way Kylo likes. Kylo wonders why would Hux even know how Kylo likes to take his caf. And why he never thought it necessary to use that knowledge before.

Hux apparently knows many things, and uses them in carefully measured amounts to maximise the effect. Ever the strategist. Kylo scowls into the cup and leaves it half-finished on the table, gathering the rest of his things and walking out of the door before Hux could do anything even more out of character.

Like kissing Kylo before he leaves.

They never did that, and Kylo never knew he’d been missing it until now, when he knows it would be a farce.

The beeping signal summoning him to his quarters for a transmission from Snoke never felt more welcome. His Master’s shaky hologram has new orders for Kylo: a new lead has been found. They’re one more step closer to the complete eradication of the Jedi.

Being the master of an ascetic order has its advantages. Kylo sends out a message to his Knights, assigns a unit of Stormtroopers to the Upsilon shuttle, orders the supply droids to load the ship and clips his lightsaber to his belt. That’s him ready to leave for indeterminate amount of time. 

About to switch off the terminal in his rooms, he hesitates. He should… No. After all, Hux as his co-commander has no authority over Kylo’s comings and goings. And as his lover… it’s not like he’ll be  _ missing _ Kylo.

When he arrives into the hangar, Hux is already there. Waiting. Kylo glares at Phasma, though with his mask on, she doesn’t even notice. He should have known that in assigning the Captain to the Upsilon crew, she would have asked Hux for confirmation. 

“Ren,” Hux greets him, shoulders straight and hands clasped behind his back, the usual sharpness of his manner seeming almost brittle today, the usual cold smoothness of his voice creaking a little like cracks in a block of ice, spreading from a single point of pressure.

He’s so beautiful, tall and clean-cut and perfect to the last crease of his tailored uniform, and Kylo hates him for showing up, for ruining Kylo’s escape with this striking reminder of what is he leaving behind.

“Is there a reason you’re taking away my men?”

“Orders from the Supreme Leader. All the details you are privy to are in the logs,” Kylo returns the patronisation with a well aimed jab. Hux’s biggest issue with the Force is that he can’t control it the way he controls everything else.

Today though, Hux doesn’t rise to the bait. 

“In your missions, you’re not answerable to me,”  Hux acknowledges with a slight tilt of his head - but then his voice drops and he sounds so  _ unlike himself _ when he asks–

“–but do you really think I don’t need to know when you’re leaving?”

Kylo deliberately recalls the look on Hux’s frostbitten face in the vision, the anger, the betrayal he’d felt. The vision was sent by the Force to protect him, and he needs protecting now, when he wants so much to believe the soft imploring look in Hux’s eyes. 

“I don’t see why you should.”

HUx’s jaw tightens for a second and then he takes a deep breath. “Kylo, just because I didn’t  _ say _ it doesn’t mean I–”

“Time is of essence, General. I must go.” Kylo can’t bear this. He thought he was strong enough, mean enough, he thought he could play along, to be the one to win this game even though it was Hux who’d set the rules. But he can’t. He can’t bear hearing the words  _ said to him _ for the first time in his life and knowing it’s a lie. 

He walks off and boards the shuttle, the hiss of the lifting ramp drowning out any words Hux might have come up with.

The mission should have taken two weeks, three at most. It turns out that morning in the hangar was the last they’ve seen each other for months. The hunt for Skywalker looked promising at first, then frustrating, then consuming: Kylo knows  _ this _ is the one chance to finally secure his place as Snoke’s apprentice and his right hand. To become strong enough, powerful enough so that nobody, even Hux, would dare to try and replace him.

Captain Phasma takes care of their assault unit, returning to the  _ Finalizer _ every couple of weeks and coming back with a fresh batch of Stormtroopers. The days after she’s chattier than usual, which Kylo tries to avoid - but never quite manages to. So he learns, fragmentarily and second-hand, what Hux is doing: how quickly the Starkiller project progresses, how exceptional it’s going to be. Kylo is smart enough to see that this Starkiller project is Hux’s own way of securing his place – that even apart, they’re doing what they’ve been doing all along: trying to one-up each other.

Then at last, Kylo’s luck turns. He captures a Resistance pilot on Jakku. It’s an important enough prisoner to be picked apart using every means available, that’s why Kylo takes him back to  _ Finalizer.  _ Not to gloat, of course not, that would be childish. Finding Skywalker’s hiding place is now, after all, First Order’s priority, and so Hux must be granted the opportunity to give a helping hand.

When Kylo walks out of the interrogation room, Hux is waiting there. 

For a little time-shifting moment, it’s as if they’d picked up where they left off all those months ago: Hux, forbidding and immaculate as ever, gets straight to the point. 

“Well then, if the map is on Jakku, we’ll soon have it.”

_ We _ . How dares he. Kylo did all the work, dragged himself across the Galaxy, left no stone unturned, while Hux’s interrogators couldn’t even do their damn job – Kylo had to go through the pain of delving forcibly into another person’s mind  _ again _ , by himself. And yet Hux is all too eager to reap his share of the reward.

With a Force damned  _ smile.  _ Hux actually smiles on him, as if he’s glad to see him again. 

Nobody has ever been glad to see Kylo again, there was never a home waiting for him to come back to. To see the very thing he desperately wanted all those years dangled in front of his face like a scam - it’s too much. 

“I’ll leave that to you,” he spits derisively and walks off.

 

*

 

The entire trainwreck that follows - their prisoner escaping, the droid following suit - brings one good thing at least: Hux drops the caring act and goes back to hating Kylo openly. 

It’s… good, Kylo decides. Their former… relationship was too good to be true anyway. A wishful dream. Kylo should be glad to be rid of this weakness. 

And yet he doesn’t feel any stronger. It still hurts, running into Hux here on there and knowing  _ he knows _ what’s under the mask. It hurts knowing he fell in love with a manipulative bastard, and it’s humiliating that there’s still a little part in Kylo that  _ misses _ Hux. 


	4. Chapter 4

It’s dark, darkness creeping behind Kylo’s eyelids, the last wisps of daylight sucked out of this world. The sun is gone, not eclipsed, but devoured - and its whole energy, trapped inside the planet core, is now tearing the planet apart.

Kylo is going to die here and it’s nothing like he expected. 

He’s alone. The scavenger girl left with the unconscious body of her traitor friend. The roar of the  _ Falcon _ engines died out long ago, leaving behind only the hissing laughter of snowflakes. 

He’s betrayed. The Force has abandoned him. He did everything to silence the conflict inside of him - he declined forgiveness, compassion, hope - he killed his own father - but instead of becoming more powerful, he’d felt the Force slipping out of his grasp. The Force has forsaken him and chose the girl as its new favourite.

Kylo tries to get up and falls again, gasping for breath. The air is thin and infused with fear, the whole collective consciousness of the non-sentient inhabitants of this planet - birds, rodents, insects - crying out in terror, they all can sense their imminent death as the planet is tearing itself to shreds beneath their feet.

Kylo tastes melted snow and salt on his face, and he wants to laugh. This is his vision, he’s dying, and Hux is not here.

“Ren? Ren!”

_ Long shadows dance wildly between the trunks, vibrant light pierces through the darkness, and Hux's voice is coming faintly from a distance.  _ Another piece of the puzzle slots into place. 

The light is the blue-white light of the torches on the Stormtroopers shoulder armours. Kylo turns his head to greet the sound of snow crunching under dust and rubble smeared boots.

Hux stops a few metres away, bends down to pick something. When he straightens again, tired and weighed down with frost clinging to his uniform and defeat shrouded around him like a curse, a stray light catches on the metal of Kylo’s lightsaber. 

_ Have you come to finish me? _ Kylo wants to ask but he can’t move his lips. The gash splitting his cheek has gone numb with the cold, his face is stiff, nerves unresponsive.

Hux staggers closer,  _ eyes like pits of fire in the dying light, teeth bared in the whipping wind, looking down at Kylo with so much rage and hate so naked on his face that Kylo feels it like another blow _ \- and then he kneels down and clips the lightsaber back onto Kylo’s belt.

“Over here!” 

There’s shouting, and Kylo howls through gritted teeth when they pull him onto a stretcher and the wound in his side spurts out fresh blood. Another chunk of ground collapses on itself dangerously close where the shuttle has landed, and then they’re all inside, and taking off, and safe. 

Kylo passes out before he can even begin to understand.

 

*

 

Waking feels like trying to get out of the snow, the cold making his every move slow and delayed. With great effort, Kylo peels his eyelids open. His body is heavy with medication and the smell of bacta clings to him, fungous and cloying. It takes a shameful couple of seconds for all the memories resurface - and when they do, his stomach curls and he feels bile rising in his throat. 

“Easy.” A hand on his chest, forcing him to lie back on the bed. Another touch, prying off his fingers from the sheets where he grasped them in his mad clawing around. Kylo blinks and tries to focus, his eyes still blurry from artificial sleep. 

“Damn you, Ren, calm down, you’re going to reopen your wounds.”

Kylo finally focuses enough to recognise Hux, sitting at his bedside. He looks so familiar - the sneer, the disdain in his eyes - that Kylo wants to cry in relief, and then in regret, and then some more just for the sake of all those years he’d spent  _ not _ crying. 

So familiar, and at the same time, Hux is a stranger: he’s holding himself straight with visible strain, there’s a sparse ginger scruff along his jawline and his hands are shaking a little. Kylo drinks in all the details, hungry for each and every one, because he knows with crushing certainty this may be the last time he’s allowed to - already the corners of Hux’s mouth are turning down in a clear expression of disgust.

“Now when you’re done panicking, I’ll send in the med droids.”

Kylo grasps Hux’s hand before he can think better of it. To his surprise, Hux doesn’t jerk it away immediately. 

“I’m so sorry,” Kylo manages, throat stiff with disuse and his own voice foreign to his ears. 

Hux regards him calmly - too calmly. It feels as if there’s an electricity brewing in the air, a lightning ready to struck. “You kept saying that,” he remarks eventually. “In your fever. ‘I’m sorry’ and ‘I misinterpreted the vision.’ Over and over. As if it was important.” He spits the last word out with derision and Kylo flinches. 

If Hux has already given up on him entirely, the Force will forever laugh at Kylo. And yet, despite the words sharps like knives, Hux’s hand remains soft, warm and exhausted in Kylo’s.

“You don’t hate me,” Kylo tries out the words, looking at the past through their prism. Everything makes so much sense now.

“I didn’t,” Hux corrects him, “until you decided to ruin everything I worked for.” 

Then his eyes sharpen, and even more when he doesn’t miss another flinch Kylo can’t suppress in time. His fingers tighten around Kylo’s wrist and dig in to the point of pain.

“The vision,” Hux begins, slow and dark, “the  _ misinterpreted  _ vision. Care to explain?”

“The Force sent me visions,” Kylo swallows, feeling like a prey. There’s no escape from Hux’s gaze now. “Of you. And me - beaten, slowly succumbing to my wounds, and you standing above me, my lightsaber in your hand. No context, no explanation, just this.”

Hux looks to the side for a moment, face immobile as usual when his thoughts are racing. 

“I see,” he says after a while, voice colourless. “That was easy to misinterpret, I agree.” He lets go of Kylo’s hand and the pain of it is so acute it feels as if Kylo’s own hand was cut off at the wrist. But Hux is not done thinking yet. 

“Tell me, you bastard, how long were you sleeping with me, believing I was planning to kill you?”

Every drop of resentment towards Hux that Kylo’s amassed in the past months, every accusation and every wounded ‘how could you’ he’d piled up, now turn on their heel and come crashing upon him. He’d blamed Hux for lying to him, for using seduction as a smoke screen, and yet he himself was all too ready to use the same tactic. The admission must be showing on his face because Hux is already rising from his seat, looking somehow more tired than he already was.

“Just the once,” Kylo blurts out, trying to save the unsaveable. 

Hux closes his eyes. His fingers are twitching. “So it was a fucking lie. When you told me–”

“No!”

A water sloshes out of a glass standing on a nearby table, every piece of furniture rattling with the force of Kylo’s desperation. He speaks quickly now, too quickly, because Hux is never going to give him another chance. 

“I meant it. Please, Hux, I meant it. When we started - I thought it was just that, what you said, a relief, a truce. I didn’t even know how much I’ve fallen in love with you until I had the vision and I - I didn’t realise what it was. I wished I was able to unsee it. And then you started to - and it hurt - believing it wasn’t true, and I wanted it so much, no one has ever–”

Kylo realises he’s rambling and cuts himself off. Pathetic. Pitiful. Hux has stopped halfway to the door, back turned to Kylo, head bowed to the side. When he speaks, it’s soft, almost like an afterthought. 

“To be honest - since we’re apparently doing this now - I did resent you in the beginning. This ship should have be mine, mine alone, and you proved to be a colossal pain in the arse. I  _ did _ think that having you in my bed would make you easier to deal with. It’s taken me awhile to realise I didn’t have to pretend… There was never anyone–”

“Hux...”

“I’ve been beating myself up for months,” Hux continues, and Kylo feels every inch of the distance between them as a punishment. “I thought if– if I were more  _ outspoken _ with you, more  _ brave _ –”

An abrupt cut-off and a shake of his head - and the door slide shut behind Hux. Kylo lets the pain rise and spill in silence - shouting would have no effect now. A moment later a med droid whirls in, beeping a preprogrammed question. Kylo smashes it.

 

*

 

Two days later Kylo limps into the observatory. It used to be Hux’s favourite place for thinking. Kylo could sense him from across half of the ship - but now when he’s coming closer, the storm of Hux’s mind is being tucked away, mental shields going up. It feels like crawling through a desert only to find out that the wellspring has been a mirage.

Kylo comes to stand next to Hux at the viewport. The white lines of stars in hyperspace paint an impassive mask on his face. Not even with the slightest twitch of muscle does he acknowledge Kylo’s presence. When he speaks, it’s directed into the outer space.

“I’m still mad at you.”

“Then be,” Kylo takes a step closer. “Be angry with me. Be - something, anything,  _ with _ me.”

Finally Hux turns to him, sighing.

“Your failure cost me my life’s work.” 

“You’ll build a better weapon.”

“You made me blame myself for something that wasn’t my fault for months.” 

“Let me make it up to you.”

Kylo is so close now, he can see the little sparks flashing in the cold blue of Hux’s eyes.

“I want to punch you until you bleed.” 

Kylo lifts one of Hux’s hands and presses it against his cheek - the good one. “I’d let you.”

“Don’t you ever, you idiot,” Hux snaps. He brings his other hand to trace along Kylo’s scar, the touch so light and wary it makes Kylo’s chest tighten. 

“I should throw you out of the airlock and be done with you.” 

“Yo never liked easy solutions.”

“I want to bend you over these consoles and fuck you raw.”

Kylo dares a grin and it’s a risk, Hux is still not exactly meeting his eyes but something of the coldness about him is thawing. “Maybe in two days or so when I actually can bend.”

Hux rolls his eyes, grabs a handful of hair, yanks until Kylo’s eyes water and crashes their mouths together, hungry and possessive, a man staking his claim.

 

*

 

Another two days roll by before Kylo is finally allowed into Hux’s bed. He’s sprawled on his stomach, cock trapped between his belly and the pillow stuffed under him, dripping with every lazy roll of Hux’s hips. Hux whole body is a blanket of bliss over Kylo’s, only his hips moving, driving into him again and again and not deep enough, not hard enough but Kylo could weep how much he wants to stay like this forever. 

Hux has arranged him like this, to put as little strain on his wound as possible, or so he said. He’s keeping his wrists pinned next to Kylo’s head, forcing him to take exactly what Hux gives and not an inch more, and it’s caring and cruel at once and so very  _ Hux _ that Kylo think he could come just from that.

But he’s never one just to  _ take _ , and he knows how much Hux likes to fight him, so he keeps writhing and straining for more, lifting his hips and grinding back into Hux. He grins when it earns him a sharp slap on his arse, the smarting sting of it soothed immediately by Hux’s warmth coming back to plaster all along his body, Hux’s breath hot in his ear.

“Patience. Be good for me.”

Kylo wants to snip something back but Hux rakes his nails down his sides, over the still itching new skin. Kylo’s nerves spark up like fireworks at the burst of pleasure-pain spreading through his body and he groans, going boneless and pliant in Hux’s hands.

“So good,” Hux whispers and then takes pity on him. He grabs Kylo by the hips, hitching them higher and fucks him, short stabbing thrusts that have Kylo see stars and scream when he comes, Hux’s fist in his hair and Hux’s teeth in his shoulder and Hux’s cock spurting deep inside him, milked to the last drop in the aftershocks of Kylo’s orgasm. 

Kylo flops down, sated and hazy, mindless of the wet spot beneath him. He ignores the impatient swat on his arm, Hux’s way of telling him to get into the ‘fresher to clean himself up.

The next jab is aimed right into his tender side and Kylo grunts. 

“Don’t want to move.”

“Get up. You’re a mess.”

“No point. You’ll just make another mess of me in forty minutes.”

“Presumptuous and greedy, are we?”

Kylo curls onto his good side and pulls Hux into his embrace. Hux scowls at the stickiness but relaxes all the same, resting his head on Kylo’s forearm. 

“We’re arriving to Snoke’s planet in sixteen hours. I want to feel you for  _ days _ .”

Hux snorts at the suggestion but there’s an uneasy line lingering between his brows. The air in the room soon turns chilly as they both think about what lies ahead. Snoke. Kylo’s training. Separation.

“What do you think will happen?”

_ I don’t know _ , Kylo wants to say but when he opens his eyes, there’s no sleepy and sweat-sticky Hux in his arms, no soiled sheets bunched up under their exhausted bodies. What Kylo can see is himself kneeling, Hux standing in front of him, a flash of white and gold, pride and victory rolling off of him like a flood, and Kylo’s crackling red blade being brought down next to his neck.

“Kylo?”

Kylo blinks back to present. The visions have already betrayed him once. This time, he wants to trust. All is as the Force wills it. 

He tightens his arms around Hux. “I don’t know.”

 

*

 

Seven months later Kylo is kneeling before the Emperor’s throne and Hux is holding a sizzling blade above his shoulder, then above the other one. Pride and victory is rolling off of him, and it’s all directed at Kylo.

“Rise, my Knight.”

He does. The newly crowned Emperor wraps a pledge band around his wrist, identical to the one he’s wearing, and kisses him for all the Galaxy to see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excuse the self-indulgent ending. You'll have to pry the Emperor Hux trope out of my cold dead hands.


End file.
